


Performance Review

by Hawkwitch



Series: pre [11]
Category: Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister
Genre: Dark Comedy, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4819673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkwitch/pseuds/Hawkwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: Performance Review<br/>Characters: Sir Arnold<br/>Genre: Dark Comedy<br/>Rating: PG<br/>Warnings: some nice words<br/>Summary: Approx. 10 years pre-canon. Once a year Permanent Secretaries get an opportunity to make totally anonymous comments about each other. Is it brutal or yes?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Performance Review

Once a year the Permanent Secretaries got an opportunity to totally anonymously comment on each other. It was done before performance reviews. Not that these comments actually influenced performance reviews, but the sheer brutality of this exercise made it worth it.

He started reading with comments on someone quite decent, popular and friendly with everybody. „Open whaling season“ he could read. That was quite funny.

Then he took a look at comments on the latest appointee. He read from a piece of paper: „While there used to be speculations, whether his predecessor was genuinely mad or he was a simulant who was using this for strategic purposes, then the appointment of him as a successor ought to end these rumours and prove once and for all that the poor old man was indeed suffering from a severe case of schizophrenia and the appointment was made while hallucinating.“ Sir Arnold told his assistant to let the person in question hear about it – exact quote, not missing any word – and also let him know that he himself could not have expressed it better.

Then he turned to another pile of comments. He read from a piece of paper: „he has massive anger issues and talks to women like shit“ He read a few more of the comments, but there were just complaints, complaints and more complaints. And some profanities. All very direct. Sir Arnold sighed wearily. The last comment said "we all know you will not fire him". He instructed the assistant to tell the person in question that enough means enough and this time it is finally final– no quibble.

 

The Prime Minister’s treatment of OPEC was disasterous. As it turned out, he acted on information which was outdated. He made a fool out of himself on global arena, but worse, people at home were saying he is damaging British national interest. He concluded wisely he does not really wish to deal with the consequences and resigned. There was enough cannon-fodder around for replacement.

Permanent Secretaries were unanimously shocked that the largest bonus landed in the pockets of Director General of MI-5. Sir Humphrey was not too polite when he wanted to know why. Sir Arnold pointed out that this branch’s operations were run smoothly and did not require his constant oversight. Sir Humphrey dared to snark this branch’s operations were run smoothly exactly because the oversight was ZERO!

Bah! No pleasing some people...


End file.
